! Bob, Clifford - The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics (CUP, Cambridge Studies in...

8/20/2019 ! Bob, Clifford - The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics (CUP, Cambridge Studies in Contentious Pol…

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To Joan


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Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics

Editors

Mark Beissinger Princeton University

Jack A. Goldstone George Mason University

Michael Hanagan Vassar College

Doug McAdam Stanford University and Center for Advanced

Study in the Behavioral SciencesSuzanne Staggenborg University of Pittsburgh

Sidney Tarrow Cornell University

Charles Tilly (d. 2008) Columbia University

Elisabeth J. Wood Yale University

Deborah Yashar Princeton University

Ronald Aminzade et al., Silence and Voice in the Study of

Contentious Politics Javier Auyero, Routine Politics and Violence in Argentina:

The Gray Zone of State Power

Clifford Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media,

and International Activism

Charles Brockett, Political Movements and Violence in Central

America

Christian Davenport, Media Bias, Perspective, and State

RepressionGerald F. Davis, Doug McAdam, W. Richard Scott, and Mayer

N. Zald, Social Movements and Organization Theory

Jack A. Goldstone, editor, States, Parties, and Social Movements

Tamara Kay, NAFTA and the Politics of Labor

Transnationalism

Joseph Luders, The Civil Rights Movement and the Logic of

Social Change

Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of

Contention

Continued after the Index


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The Global Right Wing and theClash of World Politics

CLIFFORD BOB

Duquesne University


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cambridge university press

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,Singapore, S ˜ ao Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, ny 10013-2473, usa

www.cambridge.orgInformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/ 9780521145442

C Clifford Bob 2012

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exceptionand to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,no reproduction of any part may take place without the writtenpermission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2012

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data

Bob, Clifford, 1958–The global right wing and the clash of world politics / Clifford Bob.

p. cm. – (Cambridge studies in contentious politics)Includes bibliographical references and index.isbn 978-0-521-19381-8 (hardback) – isbn 978-0-521-14544-2 (paperback)1. Non-governmental organizations – Political activity. 2. Right and left(Political science) – History – 21st century. 3. Political activists – History –

21st century. 4. Social conflict – Political aspects. 5. Culture andglobalization. I. Title.jz4841.b63 2011320.52–dc23 2011044021

isbn 978-0-521-19381-8 Hardbackisbn 978-0-521-14544-2 Paperback

Additional resources for this publication atwww.cambridge.org/ 9780521145442

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracyof urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in thispublication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, orwill remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents

Preface page ix

1 Clashing Networks in World Politics 1

2 Making and Unmaking Policy 16

3 Culture Wars Gone Global: Gay Rights versusthe Baptist-Burqa Network 36

4 Litigating for the Lord: American Attorneys andEuropean Sexualities 72

5 Shootout at United Nations Plaza: Warring overGlobal Gun Control 109

6 Battlefield Brazil: National Disarmament and

International Activism 1477 Conclusion 183

Appendix: Interviews 201

Sources 209

Index 211

vii


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x Preface

understudied operations of right-wing activists. Equally, I ana-

lyze their continuous clashes with human rights, environmental,

and social justice groups – not only the rivals’ efforts to sway

decision makers, but also their strategic attacks on one another.

In particular, I highlight fights over gay rights and gun control

at the United Nations and in countries such as Brazil, Romania,

Sweden, and the United States.

The argument I make, however, applies more broadly, to any

number of political issues, both domestic and international, as

well as the many connections between. In the Introduction and

especially in the Conclusion, I discuss the scope of my argument.For now, it is useful to note that I do not confine it to the left-right

rift, notwithstanding the first part of this book’s title. That ideo-

logical division encompasses much, but it by no means exhausts

the sources of contention in contemporary society.

In this book, I hope to convey the fervor, invention, and antag-

onism I have observed. I have written it not only to advance

political science, but also to inform activists and the broader

public. The issues are too hot and the personalities too intrigu-ing to leave to specialists alone. This has posed certain problems

for the research. For one thing, to what extent can the parties

to the conflicts be trusted to have provided me with accurate

information? This problem occurs in much political research.

But because of the emotions boiling around gay rights and gun

control, partisans invariably suspect their opposite numbers of

deceit. I have been skeptical too and have sought throughout tobase my analysis on evidence beyond what I am told or given.

As a second problem indicative of the passions involved, I have

been sucked into the vortex myself, not just as an observer, but as

an unasked-for bit player. For instance, in interviewing leaders of

Brazil’s pro-gun coalition, Pela Legitima Defesa (PLD), I used my

trusty if antiquated cassette tape recorder, as I do when permitted

in all interviews. Unexpectedly, my interviewees turned the tables

and upped the ante. They trained the latest pocket-sized, tripod-mounted, digital video-recorder on me, so that both of us would

have a record of the interview. Two days later, a description of

my visit, complete with photos, appeared on a PLD blog under


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Preface xi

the Portuguese title, “North American Expert Visits Brazil to

Learn How We Won the 2005 Referendum.”

A similar thing happened when I interviewed a leader of the

Romanian Alliance for Families (ARF), a group defending “tra-

ditional families.” Days later, he informed me by e-mail that the

group’s upcoming newsletter would note my 2009 book, The

International Struggle for New Human Rights, which, among

other chapters, includes one by a prominent and openly lesbian

scholar on the promotion of gay rights among human rights

NGOs. A few weeks later, ARF quoted a broad passage from the

book’s introduction in a commentary submitted to the Parlia-mentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Without meaning

to and admittedly in minor ways, I have therefore been inserted

into these conflicts myself – a “risk” that all social scientists

investigating controversial contemporary issues face.

A final point along these lines concerns my own positions on

the issues. I have sought throughout to be objective and to keep

my personal views out of my work. This has been difficult. Those

who promote a “scholar-activist” model might say it is a mistake.Although I take strong stances in other settings, including op-ed

pieces and public blogs, I believe it is important in works that

seek to advance political science to keep one’s own politics out –

or at least to try to do so. To do otherwise distorts reality and

therefore does a disservice to the groups one supports.

For information and insights that made this book possible,

I thank the many people I interviewed both in person and bytelephone. For critical financial support, I thank the American

Council of Learned Societies fellowship program. In addition, I

thank Duquesne University, particularly its Faculty Development

Fund, Presidential Scholarship, and late Dean Albert C. Labriola.

Duquesne has been a wonderful setting for my scholarship and

teaching during this project. I am grateful to my students with

whom I shared chapters and from whom I received excellent

feedback. I also thank my colleagues at the McAnulty College of Liberal Arts, especially in the political science department.

During the years that I worked on this book – even before I

knew that I was doing so, or knew what I was doing – I was


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xii Preface

given the chance to present pieces that, in one form or another,

have become part of it. I am grateful for invitations from: North-

western University International Organizations and International

Law Workshop; Oxford University Department of International

Development; City University of New York Politics and Protest

Workshop; Duke University Seminar on Global Governance and

Democracy; Widener University School of Law; Indiana Univer-

sity School of Public and Environmental Affairs; Brown Univer-

sity, Watson Institute for International Studies; American Soci-

ety of International Law annual meeting; University of Maryland,

Contentious Politics/International Relations Workshop; NormanPatterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University;

University of Pennsylvania Annenberg School for Communica-

tion; London School of Economics Centre for the Study of Global

Governance; George Washington University Institute for Global

and International Studies; University of Pittsburgh Social Move-

ment Forum, Center for Latin American Studies, and Interna-

tional Relations Workshop; and Cornell/Syracuse Universities

Workshop on Transnational Contention. For their support of me during these events, I am particularly grateful to Karen Alter,

Deborah Avant, Kathy Blee, Timothy Buthe, Martha Finnemore,

Kirsten A. Gronbjerg, Rodney Bruce Hall, Virginia Haufler,

James Jasper, Mary Kaldor, John Markoff, David Mendeloff,

Hans Peter Schmitz, Susan Sell, Andrew Strauss, and Steven M.

Watt.

In addition to the helpful comments I received at all theseevents and at regular professional meetings, a number of individ-

uals took the time to write critiques of my work in progress. These

include Cristina Balboa, Charli Carpenter, Joerg Friedrichs,

Mark Haas, Michael Hanagan, James Jasper, Kate Krimmel,

Daniel Kryder, David S, Meyer, Helen Milner, Aseem Prakash,

Luc Reydams, James Ron, Valerie Sperling, Andrew Strauss,

Sarah Stroup, June Swinski, Sidney Tarrow, Mitchell Troup, and

Elke Zuern. I am particularly grateful as well for the support of Lewis Bateman, my editor at Cambridge University Press.

Others who contributed in various ways to this book include

Peter Agree, Eva Bellin, Daniel Bob, Alexander Cooley, John


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Preface xiii

Dale, Kevin DenDulk, Eileen Doherty-Sil, Patrick Doreian, Mike

Edwards, Jennifer Erickson, Archon Fung, Tamar Gutner, Fen

Hampson, Giuditta Hanau Santini (without deprecation), Roger

Haydon, Paul Heck, Bonnie Honig, Lisa Jordan, Pamela Martin,

David McBride, James Morone, Charles Myers, Sharon Erick-

son Nepstad, Robert Paarlberg, Martin Packer, Leigh Payne,

Daniel Posner, Lawrence Rosenthal, Richard J. Samuels, Alberta

Sbragia, Frank Schwartz, Rudra Sil, Joel Swanson (the “man on

the street”), Stephen Van Evera, Paul Wapner, Claude Welch,

and Steven Wilkinson. At risk of pretentiousness, I also pay trib-

ute to several works of art that have been constant companionsas I wrote this book: Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo: A Tale of the

Seaboard , a beautiful and brilliant study of political conflict;

Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony; and Ludwig van Beethoven’s

Missa Solemnis.

Any errors that remain in the book – including my inadvertent

omission of any who helped me in this project over the years –

are of course my responsibility. Speaking of omissions, this book

includes no bibliography, although I cite all references fullyin the footnotes. A full bibliography is available at the book’s

permanent Cambridge University Press Web site. This includes

“active citations,” an important new idea proposed by Andrew

Moravcsik, allowing readers to view at a click all or part of many

of my sources, including most importantly primary sources. This

should make it easier for others to detect my errors, refine my

interpretations, and advance scholarship for all.My thankfulness to my family is greatest. I hope that my years

of work on conflict helped pacify me at home, but I am not so

sure. In any case, I am grateful to my children, Alex and Natalie,

for keeping me from becoming too serious. In particular, I will

always treasure their laughing with me about a Planet of the

Apes movie trailer about armed apes hunting “lowly terrified

humans” and at me about my misadventures failing to hike up

Rio de Janeiro’s Sugarloaf Mountain. I also thank my mother,Renate Bob, for deluging me with useful articles on right-wing

activism from her host of left-wing listservs – and generally for

being the greatest Mom one could hope for.


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xiv Preface

Most importantly, I thank my wife, Joan Miles, who gritted

her teeth through my obsession with the right wing and kept on

smiling, usually. Joan has been an inspiration and sometimes a

prod to my work. Both were critical to my finishing this book

more or less on time. Whether she likes it or not, I dedicate this

work to her, with love.


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1

Clashing Networks in World Politics

In the summer of 2003, a handful of beleaguered Brazilians

appealed for help from a powerful American rights organization.

Menaced by new government initiatives, they believed the foreign

group had the expertise, power, and connections to turn back the

threat. At its Fairfax, Virginia headquarters, the Americans mobi-lized, sending a seasoned activist to S ˜ ao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

On his mission, he gathered facts, met with anxious citizens,

and suggested strategies. Soon the Brazilians adopted ideas and

approaches the Americans had deployed elsewhere. Ultimately

this foreign support helped change the direction of Brazilian law.

Meanwhile, the nongovernmental organization (NGO) was busy

on other fronts. In the United States, it fought to protect vulner-able citizens at home and abroad. Lobbying Congress, working

the courts, and cultivating the media, its operatives crusaded for

rights and freedom. At the United Nations, its staff worked with

like-minded organizations from other countries to shape inter-

national policy. Members of this global network issued press

releases, attended conferences, and stressed the moral impera-

tives of immediate action, not least in Brazil.

In many ways, this might seem an unremarkable story from theage of globalization. Today “local” rights abuses routinely attract

overseas concern. Environmental devastation in one region gal-

vanizes action in others. Legislators in the United States and the

1


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2 The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics

European Union vote on domestic policies affecting foreign soci-

eties. And NGOs use the United Nations, the world media, and

the Internet to advance all manner of campaigns.

This story was different, however. The Brazilians were not

torture victims, and the NGO was not Human Rights Watch.

Rather, Brazilian gun owners reached overseas when threatened

by tough new laws, including a national referendum to ban civil-

ian firearms sales. The NGO they tapped? America’s National

Rifle Association (NRA). Various factors led to the referendum’s

defeat, but the NRA’s influence was salient. Its message – honed

for decades in the United States – swept Brazilians. The right toown firearms, previously unvoiced in Brazil and absent from its

constitution, became a rallying cry. The disarmament referen-

dum, backed both by the government and a transnational gun

control network, had been expected to pass handily. Instead, it

failed by a 2:1 margin.

In the United States, the NRA’s power on national gun issues

is famous – or infamous, depending on one’s perspective. Less

known, the group plays an important role in other countries, atthe United Nations, and in U.S. foreign policy. This gun activism

and its collisions with control forces are by no means unusual.

Although little noted by analysts, most global issues involve not

just a single “progressive” movement promoting a cause, but also

rivals fighting it. The women’s movement has long faced hostil-

ity from “pro-family” NGOs. Allying with locals from Sudan to

China, this “Baptist-burqa” network is a major presence at UNconferences and other global forums. On ecological concerns,

NGOs such as Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club repre-

sent only one slice of the ideological spectrum. Organizations

opposing environmental regulation are equally active. More gen-

erally, networks battle over the state’s role in the economy, with

everything from old-age pensions to foreign aid part of a global

fray.

Yet for all the frequency with which activist groups clash,scholarly and journalistic accounts have been one-sided. Most

focus on movements of the political left: their development, lob-

bying, and protest. A particular favorite has been the antiglobal-

ization or global justice movement, its small but colorful efforts


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Clashing Networks in World Politics 3

to counter neoliberalism drawing media and academic attention.

Such research is useful, but contestation over global issues cannot

be reduced to battles over economic globalization itself.

More important, whether because of ideological proclivities,

sympathy with apparent underdogs, or sheer oversight, analysts

miss key parts of the story – rival activism in civil society. To

quote political scientist Mary Kaldor, despite “conservative”

groups being “extremely powerful,” they are “rarely mentioned”

in the burgeoning study of global politics. The omission is in fact

greater, however. Conflict among rival networks, whatever their

ideology, is seldom examined, in favor of studies that highlightone side’s efforts to persuade decison makers.1

Investigating conflict does more than just plug a yawning

empirical hole. It helps answer critical questions in world politics:

Why do only a few efforts to create international policy succeed?

What explains a policy’s scope and strength? These questions

suggest that existing research suffers from biases because it has

focused on instances in which new policy has been made. But

even dynamic campaigns often end with a whimper. Resistanceis not the only reason, but it plays a major role. Of course, such

“failures” are simultaneously victories for opponents. Analyzing

new policy, as well as its subversion and aversion, highlights

this reality. In addition, it challenges received wisdom about

transnational activism, including the ways in which rival net-

works emerge, interact, and influence.

In the dominant view, NGOs are a counterweight to staterepression and corporate greed, succoring the needy and uplift-

ing the downtrodden. Researchers and romantics have toasted

transnational networks as the vanguard of an emerging “global

civil society.” They offer new avenues of representation. They

hand stifled voices a global megaphone. They express popular

1 Mary Kaldor, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (Cambridge: Polity

Press, 2003). For exceptions, see Mitchell A. Orenstein, Privatizing Pen-sions: The Transnational Campaign for Social Security Reform (Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press, 2008); Susan K. Sell and Aseem Prakash, “UsingIdeas Strategically: The Contest between Business and NGO Networks in Intel-lectual Property Rights,” International Studies Quarterly 48, no. 1 (2004):143–75.


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preferences better than elected governments. In this view, envi-

ronmental, human rights, and social justice NGOs democratize

global governance. Few analysts, however, examine the powerful

networks opposing these goals.2

Some might retort that the novelty of these developments

explains the gap. In reality, conflict only appears new because

it has for so long been overlooked. Most of the networks noted

previously have existed for years – as have their clashes with com-

petitors. Further back in history, celebrated movements fought

powerful but forgotten rivals – and suffered decades of defeat.

Consider the suffragists, who tangled not only with govern-ments but also with such organizations as Britain’s Women’s

Anti-Suffrage League and the New York State Association

Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Earlier still, abolitionists in Eng-

land, the United States, and elsewhere confronted pro-slavers and

anti-abolitionists whose own broad-based, if repugnant, move-

ments interacted across national borders. In the economic realm,

transnational movements have battled for centuries over the rela-

tionship between markets and societies. Historian Karl Polanyiargued that modern capitalism rose through a “double move-

ment,” with promoters of laissez faire matched against workers

opposed to it.3

In short, despite recent ballyhooing of NGOs as a force for

progress, civil society has long worked at cross-purposes. Neglect

of these battles does not result from latter-day blindsiding by

2 Recent work that has begun to fill the gap includes Doris Buss and Didi Her-man, Globalizing Family Values: The Christian Right In International Poli-tics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003); William E. DeMars,NGOs and Transnational Networks: Wild Cards in World Politics (London:Pluto Press, 2005); Alain No ël and Jean-Philippe Th érien, Left and Right inGlobal Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Jackie Smith,Social Movements for Global Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer-sity Press, 2008); Steven Teles and Daniel A. Kenney, “Spreading the Word:The Diffusion of American Conservatism in Europe and Beyond,” in Growing

Apart? America and Europe in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Jeffrey Kopsteinand Sven Steinmo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 136–69.

3 Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Originsof Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), 76, 132, 149. See also Jane

Jerome Camhi, Women against Women: American Anti-Suffragism, 1880– 1920 (Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, 1994); James A. Morone, Hellfire


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newly internationalized conservatives. Rather, it stems from ana-

lytic blinders against studying failed efforts at policy making –

or from political blindness to studying “retrograde” movements.

The Argument

In this book, I make four arguments. First, transnational poli-

tics is ideologically diverse and conflictive. Deploying recurrent

tactics and themes, rival networks advance their positions and

slash away at the enemy’s. They influence one another’s devel-

opment, strategies, and outlook. Clashes attract attention andraise an issue’s profile, useful in later rounds. Confrontation ful-

fills NGOs’ internal needs too. How better to galvanize staff,

activate members, and raise funds than combating a reviled foe

seeking abhorrent goals on a vital issue? Contention between

networks – not just between a single network and target states

or corporations – is therefore endemic. Nor does this only fol-

low left-right lines. Such divisions represent an important way in

which combatants understand and promote their goals. Conflictitself is fundamental, however, its precise orientation secondary.

Second, the battles cut across institutions and borders. Duel-

ing networks range the globe, their members working in inter-

national forums and states. Indeed, the latter are central because

those in power domestically determine governmental stances on

foreign policy. Activists scramble for influence at home using

ideas, strategies, and resources from abroad. They deploy devel-opments in one country to excite or scare constituents in another.

Low-level conflict smolders in blogs, chatrooms, op-eds, and

books. Antagonists amass intellectual phalanxes in think tanks,

university centers, and media outlets, all poised for the next flare-

up. In all this, activists know that they “work on an enormous

canvas, a canvas that encompasses the entire world.”4 So in this

Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History (New Haven, CT: Yale Uni-versity Press, 2003), 69–82; Larry E. Tise, Proslavery: A History of the Defenseof Slavery in America, 1701–1840 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987).

4 Austin Ruse, “Toward a Permanent United Nations Pro-Family Bloc,” paperdelivered to World Congress of Families II, Geneva, Switzerland, Nov. 14–17,1999, http://www.worldcongress.org/wcf 2 spkrs/wcf 2 ruse.htm.

http://www.worldcongress.org/wcf2http://www.worldcongress.org/wcf2http://www.worldcongress.org/wcf2http://www.worldcongress.org/wcf2


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book, I take the unusual but necessary step of examining inter-

locking clashes both in global institutions such as the United

Nations and in particular countries.

Third, this globalized combat influences outcomes, whether

policy, nonpolicy, or “zombie” policy. Prior analyses, mostly of

successful policy making, explain it by pointing to persuasion,

deliberation, or appropriateness. In this view, one faction’s reso-

nant framings or cogent arguments convince government officials

and broader audiences. Policy is made and progress achieved.

In fact, however, the joyful birth of a meaningful new policy

is rare. More common is its strangulation, nonpolicy – or itsevisceration, zombie policy, the heart and soul ripped out of

whatever document painfully issues. Political combat involves a

host of unsavory, negative strategies aimed at dissuasion. Oppos-

ing activists present contrary ideas packaged in equally appealing

terms. More belligerently, they deny the very existence of “crises”

that fire their rivals. They stoke fear about the “solutions” pro-

posed by their enemies. They bombard their foes’ reputations and

rationality. Notably, too, the attacks are more than just rhetor-ical. Indeed they must be because framing has limited ability to

change the many minds in civil society and government that are

already made up. Even as each side builds its own coalition,

it works to unbuild its opponents’. As it enters institutions, it

strives to exclude its rivals. As it sets agendas, it toils to unset its

enemy’s.

Conflict between networks is not the sole explanation for thepolitics of “stasis” or “regress.” On many issues, however, oppo-

nents wield great power. All this makes certain proposals more or

less costly, feasible, or risible for the governments that establish

policy. At any one time, it may be difficult to measure the precise

effect of rival movements, but by shaping one another’s iden-

tity and strategies, they influence outcomes. Notably, however,

in bitter policy battles, most “outcomes” are at best respites in

wars lasting decades. Win or lose, the combatants fight on. Theyadapt themselves to the changed conditions, even while under-

mining them. They assert their root visions in new guises or

different arenas.


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Finally, global civil society is not a harmonious field of like-

minded NGOs. It is a contentious arena riven by fundamental

differences criss-crossing national and international borders.One

side cannot be written off as GONGOs or BONGOs, government

or business-organized NGOs. All are part of global politics, even

if some are its enemies, sworn to reducing advocacy NGOs to

charity providers and eliminating the transnational as a vibrant

political sphere. For activists, this diversity poses challenges.

How can institutions such as the World Social Forum claim

the mantle of global civil society when ideologically contrary

voices are not present? More pragmatically, how can they achievetheir goals against foes who themselves claim to represent “the

people?”

For scholars, the challenge is analytic. Too much of the lit-

erature has theorized about global society narrowly, studying

only its progressive purlieus. Given such a limited view, policy

compromises seem possible through logical persuasion or gen-

tle tutelage. International institutions such as the United Nations

appear to enjoy significant authority, even respect. A broader lensreveals deep disagreement, however. Even leaving violent conflict

aside, contending groups in democratic societies hold irrecon-

cilable values. They see the world from incompatible perspec-

tives. They despise their adversaries as misguided, self-interested,

deceitful, or downright evil. There is limited room for the delib-

eration so cherished by idealists. Indeed, the combatants do not

seek compromise. They long for conquest, working as passion-ately to thwart their foes as to advance themselves. In these

clashes, the rivals deride institutions, whether domestic or inter-

national, as political creatures undeserving of deference – unless

they do the activists’ bidding. Given these chasms, current theo-

ries emphasizing appropriateness, learning, and jawboning need

to be supplemented.5

5 Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004),5, 7; Martha Finnemore, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 141–61.


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If a global civil society is indeed emerging, it is more discor-

dant and less understood than scholars have thus far imagined.

In addition, it is more rooted in domestic politics than many have

realized. Contending networks seek a glimmer of the global spot-

light, but all include NGOs and staffs with local addresses. Most

recognize the global as reflective of the national. They therefore

devote much of their energy to domestic allies fighting over state

policies and power.

Definitions and Caveats

Before proceeding, it is useful to discuss the concept of transna-

tional advocacy networks, first identified by Keck and Sikkink.

United by common causes and ideas, such networks include

NGOs, foundations, and broader publics, as well as officials of

governments and international organizations.6 The latter have

wider concerns but are less amenable to persuasion than often

believed because they already occupy partisan camps. Network

constituents engage in two broad activities: supporting localgroups (the “boomerang” pattern); and swaying international

institutions either directly, by lobbying them or member gov-

ernments, or indirectly, by shaping ideas. In reality, these activ-

ities blur, with strategies and conflicts in one realm spilling into

the other. For instance, members of both the women’s rights

and family values networks fight one another over reproductive

rights/abortion at the United Nations while aiding local clientsbattling similar issues.

Networks are shifting and loose-knit. It is seldom accurate

to ascribe motivations or intentions to them as a whole because

their members differ on particular issues. For that reason, I focus

on the organizations composing them. Among these, it is pos-

sible to distinguish the more from the less powerful, notwith-

standing the lack of formal hierarchy within networks. If state

6 Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders: Advo-cacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1998), 8–10.


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bureaucrats are members, they hold considerable clout because

in the final analysis, governments make policy decisions. In day-

to-day activities, however, dedicated advocacy groups – with

their laser focus on specific issues – have greater freedom to pro-

mote ideas, concepts, approaches, and proposals that in turn

influence states. Accordingly, I highlight NGOs, private organi-

zations whose primary aims are political, social, cultural, or eco-

nomic. For additional concreteness, I focus on efforts to forge

or foil domestic or international law. By contrast, many schol-

ars study norms. Their “emergence,” however, is more difficult

to gauge and more debatable, particularly because claims to anorm’s emergence are usually refuted by opponent networks.

As noted, this book places contention at the center of anal-

ysis. One of conflict’s most enduring manifestations is the left-

right divide, and the cases I examine fall along those lines. I

therefore use the terms in this book, not least because the antag-

onists themselves do so. What do they mean? Some might argue

that the “right” refers to groups opposing policy change and the

“left” to those promoting it. On issues such as genetically modi-fied foods, however, free-market groups promote new methods,

whereas ecology organizations seek to preserve older ones, thus

turning the usual meanings of “conservative” and “progressive”

on their heads. Indeed, because of their tendentious connotations,

I use the latter terms sparingly, primarily to improve readability.

A better alternative might be to follow Thomas Sowell’s dis-

tinction between those who envision mankind as capable – orincapable – of shaping society to political ends. This division,

between the “utopian” or “unconstrained” vision on one hand

(the left) and the “tragic” or “constrained” on the other taps

the source of many contemporary controversies.7 It is notable,

however, that placing a group in one wing for one issue may not

predict its classification for another. For instance, the Catholic

Church has worked with NGOs seeking gun control but also

favors traditional families.

7 Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Strug- gles, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2007 [1987]), 9–35.


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The upshot: I occasionally use the terms right and left in this

book but not as watertight analytic categories. Rather, I apply

them to particular groups conflicting over specific goals. At a

minimum, the labels are convenient shorthand to emphasize this

book’s real focus: gaping splits within what is too glibly termed

global civil society. It is those neglected fissures and the fusillades

across them that matter most. Put another way, my focus is

conflict among networks, whatever tags one attaches to them. I

intend that the hypotheses I test and the conclusions I draw apply

beyond the left-right divide, to nonviolent contention among any

opposed networks.Notwithstanding this broad aim, a few caveats are in order,

mostly concerning the controversial ideological terms. Critics

might growl that right-wing organizations cat-paw for states

and therefore merit no separate analysis. Of course, some groups

receive state funds, employ ex-bureaucrats, and work with gov-

ernments. The same could be said for left-wing networks, how-

ever, such as the campaigns for the International Criminal Court

(ICC) and the landmines treaty. Others might carp that right-wing groups front for world capital or “neoliberal globalizers.”

This is hardly universal, however. Critical issues such as family

planning and religious belief do not implicate economic inter-

ests. In other areas, corporate views are divided, and left-wing

causes enjoy business largesse. The Body Shop, Ben & Jerry’s,

and Reebok may have paved the way, but today even Exxon

and RTZ travel this familiar road, flashing the environment andhuman rights as part of their corporate responsibilities – or mar-

keting plans. In any case, foundation support for left-wing NGOs

is rampant. Of course, that is true for the right too. For every

Ford and Open Society Foundation, there is a Koch Family or

Atlas Foundation.8

Is it valid to distinguish left- and right-wing movements by

arguing that the former enjoy grassroots support, whereas the

8 See generally DeMars, NGOs and Transnational Networks, 11, 148–52;Volker Heins, Nongovernmental Organizations in International Society: Strug- gles over Recognition (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 107–12.


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latter are at best Astroturf groups? The claim is hard to sustain.

Few NGOs are mass organizations even if individuals, along with

foundations and governments, supply their financial lifeblood.

Checkbook participation – the annual contribution to an organi-

zation known more by its name than its actions – is the rule. The

distinction between self-interested conservatives and principled

progressives is similarly overdrawn. Most ideologies assert moral

motives. Free-trade fundamentalists proclaim development and

democracy as benign by-products or even ultimate goals: greed

is good! In sum, right-wing groups should not be placed in a

different universe from left-wing ones.9

There is a more fundamental criticism of studying transna-

tional actors whatever their ideology. Hard-core realists dismiss

NGOs as gnats swarming around state elephants – annoying

but powerless. Radicals deride them as minions of neoliberalism

or Western hegemony, unworthy of separate treatment. More

nuanced treatments see them as influential only when major states

do not care about issues. True, the sway of individual NGOs

may be overstated, but the network concept remains a powerfulway of understanding policy conflicts. This is especially the case

because rival networks include groups based in particular coun-

tries. There they link to or operate as interest groups, battling one

another by spreading ideas, lobbying officials, infiltrating parties,

and influencing domestic and thereby international policy.

Finally, a caveat is in order about the supposed distinction

between local and global actors. In fact, in Tarrow’s elegantwords, today’s transnational advocates are “rooted cosmopo-

litans.10 This book will illustrate this point, showing how rival

activists, even those who glorify parochial cultures or national

traditions, leap levels of the political system – or use foreign

developments to advance their local causes.

9 Sell and Prakash, “Using Ideas Strategically.”10 Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2005), 35–56. See also James Ferguson, Global Shadows:Africa in the Neoliberal World Order (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press2006), 89–112.


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Cases and Method

In the following chapters, I have been careful not to choose cases

involving promulgation of a signal new policy. To do so wouldbe to stack the analytic deck. Rather, in picking my issues – gun

control and gay rights – I have simply looked for major ones

on which there has been significant transnational networking

and conflict. Thus these two are more typical than the issues in

which broad new policy has been created. They should therefore

provide a more representative view of processes and outcomes,

ranging from policy to nonpolicy. The cases are diverse, spanninghuman rights, development, and social justice networks. Other

scholars have begun to chronicle how free-market libertarians

with a “‘missionary spirit’” have “inject[ed] their ideas into the

domestic politics of other states.”11

Have I too stacked the deck by choosing issues unusual in

that they have drawn fire? No. From development aid to pension

reform, most policy issues pit opposing networks against one

another. Even human rights, which some believe to be beyondpolitics, evinces enduring controversy. Consider battles over

female genital mutilation/circumcision, sex work/trafficking, and

children’s/parent’s rights. Dispute over their very names hints at

the deep conflict over their substance. Even norms against tor-

ture, once considered the most impregnable bastion of the human

rights edifice, have been breached – and by democratic states

backed by civil society activists. Human rights NGOs, often seen

as the epitome of probity, have themselves come under assault

from opposing civil society groups. The cases examined in this

book are by no means rare for their clashes of NGOs. Only my

approach is unusual – giving equal empirical and explanatory

weight to diversity, dissonance, and rancor.

Admittedly, my selection of cases means that I cannot draw

conclusions about why some issues unleash abiding conflict

whereas others – in fact, only a few – spark less. In the empiricalchapters, however, the intensity of advocacy changes over time.

11 Teles and Kenney, “Spreading the Word,” 136. See also Orenstein, Privatizing Pensions.


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Each study discusses a long-standing global issue, probing why

activism and rival advocacy arise at particular moments. Beyond

this fluctuation in development and dynamics, the outcomes of

conflict vary within each case. On this basis, the Conclusion

compares the cases and offers hypotheses about why some issues

draw more fire than others.

Regarding methodology, the empirical chapters are based on

interviews with participants in the issues, as well as my per-

sonal observation of the conflicts, including at a UN meeting

and an NRA convention. In addition, to counteract my subjects’

memory lapses, 20 / 20 hindsight, political biases, and perhapsoutright lies – after all, this is politics – I have collected and ana-

lyzed primary documents from many entities. In some cases too,

I tap contemporaneous journalistic reports, particularly inter-

views conducted with participants. Used cautiously, these varied

sources provide a picture of activist thinking in something near

real time. In addition, they open a window that too often remains

shut: onto strategies and ideas that failed in an organization’s

ongoing conflict with opponents and its never-ending strugglefor survival.

Plan of the Book

Chapter 2 builds on but also critiques existing theories. In it, I

present hypotheses about how rival activism and ensuing con-

flict affect the development, dynamics, and outcomes of policybattles. As will become clear, I argue for an inclusive view of

where contention occurs. Ongoing clashes roil the media and

the Internet. Most disputes, however, occur in three connected

spheres: national societies in which outsiders help local allies;

domestic institutions debating laws with cross-border repercus-

sions; and international institutions thrashing out global policies.

Groups within conflicting networks jump the boundaries, deploy-

ing recurrent strategies to advance themselves, bolster friends,defeat rivals, and achieve or block policy.

Conservative religious groups have for years engaged in

clashes over family policy. Much of their activism aims to pre-

serve traditional families against what they decry as an onslaught


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of feminism, abortion, and gender politics. Chapter 3 high-

lights one important aspect: fighting between religious groups

and human rights activists over gay/homosexual rights at the

United Nations. Chapter 4 examines similar warfare in two Euro-

pean theaters, Sweden and Romania. There, I focus on conflict

between the gay rights network and American religious advo-

cates that have major overseas activities. Both sides back local

allies. Their lawyers litigate foreign cases. They defend or implant

favorable statutes. They use the results, both successes and fail-

ures, in other conflicts, including California’s 2008 battle over

Proposition 8.Chapter 5 examines small arms, weapons that some see as a

major source of violence and crime worldwide. Since the early

1990s, two networks concerned with such weapons have squared

off in various arenas. After describing the contenders and the

stakes of their global fight, I focus on conflict at the United

Nations. Chapter 6 examines the way in which the rival gun

networks nurtured local activism in an important country, Brazil.

I analyze both the clash of these globally linked Brazilian activistsand the ways in which international groups used the Brazilian

case in their ongoing hostilities.

In these chapters, I focus as much on the development and

dynamics of conflict as on outcomes. As noted before, new poli-

cies or nonpolicies usually lead only to pauses in political wars

spanning decades and sprawling across institutions. Major policy

can change the terrain, but it seldom dispatches the defeated for-ever. Rather they rally and regroup. Studying a single campaign

in a particular arena diverts attention from this range of conflict.

The empirical chapters do not offer exhaustive accounts of the

issues. My aim is to provide an accurate overview, demonstrating

the utility of the model developed in Chapter 2. Nor I do seek to

determine which side’s arguments, claims, statistics, and figures

reflect the actualities. This is not because I endorse relativism.

Social construction plays a major role in building campaigns,but it does not trump reality. One or another side is right in

the factual aspects of these debates, even if key parts concern

values that cannot be so assessed. In this book, however, my aim


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is to analyze the ways in which the debates are conducted and

policy outcomes sought – not to assess the validity of underlying

arguments. The latter is of course crucial to developing the best

policies, but I leave it to others to make such judgments.

The Conclusion compares the cases and draws out the book’s

scope and implications. I question views of civil society as a cohe-

sive counter to states or corporations. The ferocity of differences

suggests too that conflict, rather than persuasion and coopera-

tion, should take pride of place in studies of global governance.


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2

Making and Unmaking Policy

To reach their goals, activists work not only to persuade deci-

sion makers but also to defeat powerful networks promoting

contrary aims. These battles and their strategic anticipation influ-

ence whether a policy will be adopted. They affect where and how

those fights will be fought. They shape mobilization and the veryidentity of opposing networks.

This spotlight on conflict does not simply supplement current

ways of understanding advocacy. Rather, in explaining how pol-

icy networks operate, I place contention at the heart of analysis –

as it is at the nub of politics. I devote equal attention to equally

powerful contenders whatever their ideology, and I restore the

true nature of their clashes. As Craig Murphy has written, theseinvolve “struggles over wealth, power, and knowledge.” Or, in

Lewis Coser’s more biting terms, social conflict is “a struggle

over values and claims to scarce status, power, and resources in

which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure or elim-

inate their rivals.”1 Most scholars have highlighted the first part

of Coser’s definition, downplaying the crucial, if less savory, sec-

ond. Certainly, it is easier to analyze one complex phenomenon

1 Murphy, “Global Governance: Poorly Done and Poorly Understood,” Inter-national Affairs 75, no. 4 (2000): 789–803, 799; Lewis Coser, The Functionsof Social Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1964), 8.

16


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Making and Unmaking Policy 17

rather than two or more colliding. A network’s promotion of

its own goals, however, is intertwined with struggle against its

adversaries. To turn one’s eyes from the clash is to miss decisive

events. Of course at moments, rivals may engage in high-minded

dialogue. More typically, advocates work to destroy their foes’

reputations, ideas, and values. Compromises are viewed not as

best possible agreements but as regrettable failures to reach max-

imal ends.

Missing the Clash

Analysts have broached but seldom dwelled on this con-

tentiousness. Conventional theories view policy making as linear,

involving distinct stages of problem formation, agenda setting,

rulemaking, and implementation. These approaches accentuate

proponents pushing ideas through institutions, downplaying

opponents working at cross-purposes.

In international relations, Finnemore and Sikkink allude to the

fact that proposed international norms enter “a highly contestednormative space where they must compete with other norms and

perceptions of interest.” This key insight has been overlooked,

however. As Badescu and Weiss note, “contestation is a reality

that is seldom explicit in the literature.” Most observers exam-

ine cohesive networks promoting “progressive” principles, skip-

ping over groups who defend old ideals or promote antagonistic

ones. Boli and Thomas even suggest that NGOs march in lock-step, enacting scripts that, while contested by other actors, are

“often critical of economic and political structures, stigmatizing

‘ethnocentric’ (nonuniversalistic) nationalism[,] . . . ‘exploitative’

(inegalitarian) capitalism[,] . . . state maltreatment of citizens and

corporate disregard for the sacredness of nature.”2

2 Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics andPolitical Change,” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 887–917, 897;Cristina G. Badescu and Thomas G. Weiss, “Misrepresenting R2P and Advanc-ing Norms: An Alternative Spiral?” International Studies Review 11, no. 4(2010): 354–74, 365; John Boli and George M. Thomas, “World Culture in


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Those who highlight contestation do so in too limited a way.

Risse and Sikkink analyze the pressure repressive states face

from transnational networks espousing the “central core” of

“most accepted” human rights. They acknowledge government

delay, obfuscation, and backlash. Their “spiral model,” however,

downplays the support repressive states gain from opposition

societal networks, often based in liberal states: anticommunist

apologists for right-wing dictatorships in the 1980s; or anti-

terror defenders of waterboarding and Predator missile strikes

in the 2000s. In these cases, rival networks skirmish over the

priority of contrary moralities – rights versus security – or themeaning of the “same” norm – rights of the accused versus rights

of the victim.3 Similar battles envelop many issues.

Other analysts focus on conflict within networks. Cooley and

Ron discuss competition among development and humanitarian

NGOs as they scramble for scarce funding, members, and pub-

licity. Some note power disparities within networks, affecting

resource allocations and tactical choices. Hertel has examined

these among Northern and Southern members of the labor rightsnetwork. Carpenter documents disagreements within the chil-

dren’s rights network in explaining why certain problems such

as child soldiers gain major attention, whereas others do not.4

the World Polity: A Century of International Non-Governmental Organiza-tion,” American Sociological Review 62 (1997): 171–90, 173, 182. See also

Frank J. Lechner and John Boli, World Culture: Origins and Consequences(Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005).

3 Thomas Risse and Kathryn Sikkink, “The Socialization of Human RightsNorms into Domestic Practices: Introduction,” in The Power of Human Rights:International Norms and Domestic Change, ed. Thomas Risse, Stephen C.Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999),2, 22–28; Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Dictatorships and Double Standards: Ratio-nalism and Reason in Politics (New York: Simon & Schuster: 1983); Marc A.Thiessen, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How BarackObama Is Inviting the Next Attack (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2010); Alan M.

Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding tothe Challenge (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002).

4 Alexander Cooley and James Ron, “The NGO Scramble: Organizational Inse-curity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action,” International Organization 27, no. 1 (2002), 5–39; Shareen Hertel, Unexpected Power:


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Unexamined, however, is the more fundamental flak that even

chosen issues hit – from free-market enthusiasts who oppose

development aid and promote contract rights or from religious

networks that abhor the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Sell and Prakash suggest ways of filling this gap, arguing that

rival NGO and business networks should be seen as “two com-

peting interest groups driven by their respective normative ide-

als and material concerns.” Milner has shown how economic

groups vie with one another both domestically and internation-

ally to affect global trade policy. These insights can be extended

to explain how clashing networks shape the dynamics as well asthe outcomes of contention. McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly have

proposed one approach, urging that analysts scrutinize varied

conflicts to identify common mechanisms and processes that link

into larger episodes. That endeavor is important, and I incorpo-

rate one of their processes, “polarization,” by which controversy

deepens differences.5 Rather than dissecting conflict for recurrent

components, however, I analyze the broader strife.

This is similar to the “countermovements” approach in polit-ical sociology and the “advocacy coalition” framework in pol-

icy studies, although neither has been applied to transnational

disputes.6 More importantly, I view powerful policy networks as

Conflict and Change among Transnational Activists (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Uni-versity Press, 2006); R. Charli Carpenter, “Orphaned Again? Children Bornof Wartime Rape as a Non-Issue for the Human Rights Movement,” in The

International Struggle for New Human Rights, ed. Clifford Bob (Philadelphia,PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 14–29. See also Clifford Bob,The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Keck and Sikkink, Activistsbeyond Borders, 189–90.

5 Sell and Prakash, “Using Ideas Strategically,” 168; Helen V. Milner, Inter-ests, Institutions, and Information: Domestic Politics and International Rela-

tions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997); Doug McAdam, SidneyTarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2002), 322. For an important conflict-based approach at the

interstate level, see John M. Owen, The Clash of Ideas in World Politics:Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change, 1510–2010 (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010).

6 See, e.g., David S. Meyer and Suzanne Staggenborg, “Movements, Counter-movements, and the Structure of Political Opportunity,” American Journal


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rooted in long-standing, ideologically opposed blocs rather than

seeing one side as reactive or “counter.” I devote equal attention

to the rival networks’ strategic influences on one another and on

policy.

Development of Conflict

Although the foregoing approaches improve over single network

studies, they are too modest. I elevate conflict and the strate-

gies it entails to principal position. If the targets of activism are

governmental institutions that set policy and attentive publicsthat influence them, it makes little sense to highlight only one

movement or network. Critical instead are the ways competing

sides grapple with one another as they strive for contrary policies

across institutions. Such struggles are not the only reason for spe-

cific outcomes. Preexisting power differentials and institutional

rules play a role. To clarify my position, however, I highlight

contention.

At the heart of these conflicts are strategic choices or “dilem-mas,” as Jasper calls them.7 The combatants must make decisions

about their actions. A major influence is the expectation and real-

ity of opposition. Of course, NGOs, international organizations,

networks, and states are affected by internal tensions – not only

over the right strategic moves but also over resources and power.

The upshot: there is nothing determinate about the way in which

conflicting groups answer these dilemmas.Analysts are not left helpless, however. I propose a model

for understanding policy activism, focusing on its development,

of Sociology 101, no. 6 (1996): 1628–60; Paul Sabatier and ChristopherM. Weible, “The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Innovations and Clarifica-tions,” in Theories of the Policy Process, 2nd ed., ed. Paul A. Sabatier (Boulder,CO: Westview, 2007). See also Tina Fetner, How the Religious Right Shaped Lesbian and Gay Activism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008).

7 James M. Jasper, Getting Your Way: Strategic Dilemmas in the Real World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). See also Jarol B. Manheim,Strategy in Information and Influence Campaigns: How Policy Advocates,Social Movements, Insurgent Groups, Corporations, Governments and Others

Get What They Want (New York: Routledge, 2011).


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dynamics, and outcomes. That tripartite division is admittedly

artificial. Even as proponents push new policy, opponents repel

them, not least by promoting their own, contrary initiatives.

For clarity’s sake, however, I present the model in the forego-

ing order, highlighting recurrent dilemmas faced by the com-

batants and presenting related hypotheses. In addition, I outline

key strategies associated with the clash of networks. These come

in two overlapping but distinguishable forms deployed simul-

taneously: affirmative, in which each network advances its own

position, albeit with an eye to opponents’ reactions; and negative,

in which each bashes the enemy and its ideas.

Rival Issue Entrepreneurs

Like other scholars, I assume that policy battles begin with “issue

entrepreneurs,” individuals and groups that “construct” social

problems. That is, they politicize long-standing grievances, pre-

viously accepted conditions, or future risks, demanding action

to remedy them.8 Motivating entrepreneurs is a combination of

ideological and material concerns. First, heartfelt beliefs inspirethem to see an issue as a potentially tractable problem. Many

scholars characterize these convictions as “principled” because

issue entrepreneurs are moved in part by what they believe is

ethically right.9 Activists of contrary persuasions, however, hold

the same opinion of their own goals, generating clashes of moral-

ity. Analytically, therefore, it is better to characterize their con-

victions as ideological – rooted in systematic social, economic,religious, or other ideas and aimed at practical political ends.

In addition, entrepreneurs must concern themselves with mate-

rial matters, such as maintaining their organizations and raising

8 Ethan A. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Normsin International Society,” International Organization 44, no. 4 (1990): 479–526. See also Peter Andreas and Ethan Nadelmann, Policing the Globe: Crim-

inalization and Crime Control in International Relations (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2006).

9 Joshua W. Busby, Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2010); Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Bor-ders, 1.


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funds. These affect the number and identity of problems they

choose to stump for.

Overlooked in the literature, however, is political entrepre-

neurship’s effect on opponents. If they consider their rival’s

activism dangerous, they will fight it. This point may seem banal.

It is worth noting, however, because so few scholars have studied

these clashes, leaving the impression that transnational activism

is a high-minded affair devoid of the attack machine and innocent

of the gutter. Far from it. New policies challenge ideas, impinge

on interests, and threaten values. An enemy’s success in one realm

gives it an edge in others. Nor do foes rest on their laurels, con-tent to let politicians or institutions defend them. Instead, as one

side constructs a problem, opposing entrepreneurs, motivated by

their own mix of moral and material concerns, mobilize too. In

turn, this clash influences decisions about the aims, allies, and

arenas of struggle.

Constructing – and Deconstructing – Problems

As a general matter, entrepreneurs’ beliefs about an issue’s grav-ity affect the ways in which they construct a problem. The weight-

ier they believe it to be, the broader they will portray it and the

louder proclaim it. This basic point is affected by a strategic

choice related to opponents, however. Should activists style their

problem broadly and shout it from the rooftops, to embolden

their base, frighten their foes, or use as a bargaining chip later?

Or should they frame narrowly, attempting to reduce, delay,or avoid conflict? There is no single answer, but anticipation

of the foe’s reactions plays a key role. If policy entrepreneurs

believe a backlash will prevent them from achieving their moral

and material goals, they will constrict or even camouflage the

issues. On the other hand, if they believe they can muster power-

ful allies, contain backlash, and demonstrate their resolve, they

will frame expansively and talk openly. Problem construction

therefore involves strategies of gauging opposition and cloakingagainst it, with foes influencing decisions from the start.

Such construction has a reciprocal effect on opponents. The

more threatening the new problem, the more likely they will


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act against it. In this, they face a choice – whether to respond

forthrightly or not, with the factors noted earlier, in particular the

potential for scaring or energizing the original activists, looming

large. Either way, certain strategies are typical. For one, foes

attack the problem, denying its seriousness, coherence, or very

existence. They also seize the offensive, constructing their own

problem. Its identity? The solution offered by the original issue

entrepreneur – and usually the entrepreneur himself.

Network Building – and Unbuilding

Once conflict erupts, the contenders face a choice about howto conduct it. Should they mobilize their forces further? Should

they harass their foes? Or should they use quieter means – or even

fold? Opposition plays a major role in this decision, inadvertently

creating incentives for activists to build their own coalition.

First, because they know they will need more resources to

overcome organized resistance, they compensate by expanding

their own mobilization. In this, they invite the most capable allies

first: those with the most clout, credibility, or celebrity, who canadvance the cause and attract further support. Second, because

adversaries often deny a problem’s existence, opposition spurs

activists to link with, fund, or fashion local allies who embody

the problem’s pernicious effects. Grassroots partners authenti-

cate the issues and encourage pseudo-democratic claims: that the

network represents a substantial constituency, even “the peo-

ple” themselves. Authentication makes it easier to dismiss foesas denialists, a proliferating slur in recent policy wars. Third,

opponents unintentionally supply each other with rich fodder for

mobilization: the threat posed by the rival network. Fearmonger-

ing about foes, not just about the problem constructed by one’s

own network, is therefore common. How better to shock one’s

troops into action than emotion – and what stronger than dread

of an enemy massing against us?10

10 See, e.g., Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), “They AreComing for Our Adolescent Daughters . . . Help Me Stop Them,” Friday Faxfundraising letter, Aug. 11, 2010 (author’s files).


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Simultaneously, activists work to unbuild the rival’s network.

To start, they intimidate groups from joining, accusing them of

“treason!” for taking comfort or mere ideas from foreigners.

They strip networks of members who believe less in the cause,

flaunting high-profile defections as showing their foe’s decline.

More subtly, they forge organizations whose main goal is deau-

thenticating an opponent and its claim to speak for an entire

category of persons. Some of these are Astroturf groups, with

no significant constituency. Others represent a real and sincere

population, but their raison d’etre is aggressive – sowing doubts

about whether the foe in fact represents those it claims.A final unbuilding strategy, tarring, is anything but subtle.

Activists smear an entire network with the outlandish views,

fringe tactics, or moral failings of individual members – all with

the hope that guilt by association will sap the coalition as a

whole. In conflict over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, Human

Rights Watch was condemned in 2009 by an Israeli group, NGO

Monitor, which trumpeted the revelation that a senior HRW

analyst collected Nazi memorabilia. This kind of incident is com-mon, and opposing networks bristle with units specializing in it.

These mudslingers sift the enemy’s every move, parse its every

word, and flaunt its every faux pas – sex and money scandals,

of course, but also unguarded words, unvetted allies, and uncon-

sidered positions. From such surveillance, they gather invaluable

insights, always eager for gems as precious as a foe’s Nazi fetish.

Nor are they shy about schadenfreude. On the contrary, theyrevel in every delicious moment of their enemy’s torment.

As a final point, the potency of tarring suggests an important

caveat to network-building strategies. Expansion, though often

stimulated by opposition, is not indiscriminate. The less accept-

able a potential member, the less likely it will be admitted – with

acceptability referring to the candidate’s goals, tactics, and iden-

tity relative to the network’s as a whole. Extremity, violence, or

misconduct rule out possible allies because of the realistic fearthat foes will sully the entire network with its most problematic

element. If an existing member becomes toxic, whether because of

its actions or because of changing cultural mores, the network’s

core will purify itself by cleansing the newfound miscreant.


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In this and other ways, rivals shape the identity of one another’s

networks, often deepening conflict.11

Activating – and Deactivating – Institutions

Opposition influences the forums activists opt to use. Institutions

having easy access, available allies, and divided power holders are

obvious choices.12 In addition, the amount of civil society opposi-

tion affects an institution’s political opportunities – and activists’

choices. The weaker a foe in a relevant body, the more likely a

network’s members will enter it. Once in a favored arena, advo-

cates will bolster and legitimate it. Conversely, they will avoidand disparage those dominated by adversaries. In the extreme,

activists will invent institutions where adversaries cannot block

their initiatives. In the 1990s, the International Campaign to Ban

Landmines (ICBL) opted to forgo a universal agreement because

an anti-ban network would have crippled or killed it. The result

was the Mine Ban Treaty – a significant accomplishment but an

incomplete one, omitting the United States and other big mine

producers and users.Within institutions, foes continue their onslaughts. Where

their own network has clout, activists tilt the institution’s rules in

their favor – and against their enemies. If possible, they maneuver

to exclude or expel the rival. They pack agencies with stalwarts or

sympathizers. Special targets, as Busby suggests, are veto points –

offices that allow their occupants to shut off the opposition. All

this manipulation helps explain why international forums arenot neutral but, in Barnett and Duvall’s words, shot through

with “institutional or systemic bias, privilege, and unequal con-

straints on action.”13

11 Fetner, How the Religious Right ; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, Dynamics of Contention, 322. Cf. Badescu and Weiss, “Misrepresenting R2P,” 368.

12 Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency,

1930–1970, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999 [1982]);Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders.

13 Joshua W. Busby, Moral Movements, 61–63; Michael Barnett and RaymondDuvall, “Power in Global Governance,” in Power in Global Governance,ed. Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2005), 17.


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On the other hand, activists may enter unfriendly institutions,

if the arena is crucial in a larger battle. Even groups that con-

demn the UN as treacherous territory set up camp along the

East River. In such cases, they resort to what James C. Scott, in

another context, has called weapons of the weak, disrupting the

other side by blocking initiatives, obstructing debates, and oth-

erwise undermining their foes. All the while, they spare no effort

to delegitimate the institution itself – as inappropriate, unrepre-

sentative, or downright corrupt.14

Dynamics of Conflict

Agenda Setting – and Unsetting

A key part of policy battles involves positioning issues for debate

and decision. Only a fraction of problems ever reach those stages,

however. One reason is a surfeit of issues, requiring selectiv-

ity. Adversaries also unset one another’s agendas. Indeed, the

stronger the opposition, the less likely a network will succeed in

agenda setting.In this, rival networks dramatize their contending views simul-

taneously. Protests, marches, and strikes are no longer the left’s

preserve, if ever they were. All sides exploit “focusing events,”

moments when the public eye is already attuned to an issue.15

Even as one side hypes an incident as proving the need for imme-

diate action, however, the other works to blur it with contrary

interpretations. The result is a blizzard of canned and contradic-tory statistical reports, expert opinions, and proposed solutions.

Nor do competitors take the press for granted. Rather, they culti-

vate reporters, pushing for a good story – or a hatchet job on the

enemy. Over the long term, they nurture journalistic ties, trans-

forming media watchdogs into poodles who bark their trainers’

praise – or pit bulls who tear at the network’s foes.

14 James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987).

15 John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2nd ed. (NewYork: HarperCollins, 1995), 94–99.


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Persuasion – and Dissuasion

Notwithstanding its importance in the scholarly literature,

agenda setting does not guarantee new policy. That requires sub-

stantive decisions by political leaders. Here too, foes play a cen-

tral role. The stronger they are, the less likely a network will con-

vince policy makers. This hypothesis may again seem axiomatic.

Still, it has been overlooked and supplements a key idea in the lit-

erature: that “networks are more effective where they are strong

and dense” as measured by the “total number and size of organi-

zations” and the “regularity of their exchanges.”16 If, however,

network thickening is in part a tactic to counter opposition – orto advance pseudo-democratic claims – greater density may not

make for effectiveness. Of course, drumming up supporters may

energize a network and serve internal organizational purposes.

If it galvanizes the opposition, however, the outcome is anything

but certain.

In addition, the hypothesis suggests the need to augment

dominant analytic approaches about persuasion. These highlight

activism by a single network. For Finnemore, individuals andstates are “socializ[ed]” or “collectiviz[ed]” into adopting norms

modeled by forward-thinking movements, international organi-

zations, or governments. According to Haas, epistemic communi-

ties, composed of scientific authorities sharing causal beliefs and

validity standards, certify proposed policies. As Busby shows,

moral beacons vouch for such ideas, and entertainment figures

lend them luster. Fueling empathy, victims cry out for interven-tion with poignant personal stories. In Price’s view, advocacy

networks graft new ideas onto established principles. As Risse

and Sikkink argue, repressive governments are denounced as

pariahs and shamed into changing policies. To convince policy

makers and international audiences, activists develop appealing

rhetorical frames for the ideas they promote. To facilitate agree-

ments, international institutions foster prolonged interactions,

in Finnemore’s view generating “social liking,” even a commonHabermasian “lifeworld” among participants. Through repeated

16 Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders, 206.


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usage, proposed norms jell into “soft law,” eventually calcifying

into law itself.17

If, however, one notes the frequency with which contend-

ing networks challenge one another, these constructivist “logics”

fall short. Indeed, that term’s overtone of inevitability is unfortu-

nate. At best, these are controversial strategies aimed at political

advantage. Activists know this well. Hence, in many cases, they

seek to avoid conflict, using concealment strategies. Framing and

grafting exemplify this point, even if scholars have seldom noted

these purposes. Both offer the world a simplified, prettified ver-

sion of complex, even ugly realities. The hope is not just to rousebelievers or convince the undecided, but also to disarm adver-

saries by averting their mobilization.

Other furtive strategies have this as a central aim. Activists

split major issues into less threatening pieces to avoid attention

and contention. They secrete their campaigns in low-level venues

to evade detection and rejection. The goal is to surprise foes, as

an unseen groundswell mushrooms into open support for a con-

troversial principle. Consider the self-described “stealth” tacticproposed by the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR): working

in obscure UN agencies and treaty bodies to promote slow gains.

The advantage, as CRR itself stated: “[W]e are achieving incre-

mental recognition of values without a huge amount of scrutiny

from the opposition. These lower profile victories will gradually

put us in a strong position to assert a broad consensus around

17 Finnemore, Purpose of Intervention, 27, 153–55; Peter M. Haas, “Introduc-tion: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” Inter-national Organization 46, no. 1 (1992): 1–35; Busby, Moral Movements;Richard Price, “Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Tar-gets Landmines,” International Organization 52, no. 3 (1998): 613–44; Risseand Sikkink, Power of Human Rights, 15, 26–27. See generally ThomasRisse, “Let’s Argue!” Communicative Action in World Politics,” Interna-tional Organization 54, no. 1 (2000): 1–39; David A. Snow and Robert D.

Benford, “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest,” in Frontiers in Social Move-ment Theory, ed. Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (New Haven,CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 133–55; George Lakoff, Don’t Think of anElephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate – The Essential Guide

for Progressives (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2004).


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our assertions.”18 Stealth does not always work, however. Rivals

guard their issues, anxious to

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